The oil warning light is governed (mostly, at least) by the oil level sensor, which lives in the oil pan.

If yours is on when your oil levels check out well, there's a very, very high chance that the sensor is bad (it seems to be a relatively common failure).

Mine went bad and I had a similar experience: the light would come on intermittently and then came on all the time after the ECU starts checking it (~10s after start-up). Another way to tell it's the oil level sensor is that the electronic oil level read-out won't work right (it'll either tell you there's an error, or just display the stop-watch icon in the display forever). My FSS still seemed to work, but just seemed to reset to 7,000 and count down miles (rather than whatever self-adjusting German algorithm is supposed to be in play).

The part is about $100 and another user did a write-up about fixing it - not the easiest job as you remove the oil pan, but also not very hard as it's the ONLY thing you have to remove (besides the splash pan to get to it)!

https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...el-sensor.html

Hope this helps!

p.s. when I saw this light on my car, I was really worried too - some places in the service manual claim oil pressure plays a role, but I've never heard of one of these cars ever having a sludge or pressure issue, so I'd say with a pretty high degree of confidence that it's just the level sensor going bad.

 

I'm in Michigan - driving a rental. I better download the manuals to THIS computer when I get a chance.

But I think bri3d is right.

 

I suspect Bri3d is correct also...

Scared me when I first saw it, so changed to the right lane of the freeway and slowed down a bit.. I listened to the engine, and watched the temperature gauge for signs of it rising, but then the light went off, so, I continued off to work... Checked the Oil Level when I got there and it was fine... Need to get an Oil Pressure Gauge... I hate lights...

Thanks for the Response guys..

 

Mine started coming on about 2 weeks after I bought it (7/7/12). Scared me the first time. I had just backed out of the garage, heading to work. Now it comes and goes as it pleases. Most of the time it's just perfectly behind the wheel, and I don't really see it, but at night it drives me crazy. If the only thing it does is oil life monitor, and NOTHING else, I plan to just pull the bulb. I'll change my oil at 7k and send it off for analysis, and go by their recommendations for further oil changes. I keep checking my oil to make sure it's okay, and always on the high side of the stick.

 

You also might try one of those engine flushes just before an oil change. If sludge is the culprit it might break up enough to let it work properly. I run a qt of kerosene (generic engine flush) before all my oil changes and I have never had a sludge problem with any of my motors since the early 70's. If it pleases you you can use that 'sea-foam' stuff, whatever breaks up sludge should be OK for the motor. Kero residuals will 'burn' off after a few miles leaving your synthetic all by itself after you change it.